Anticryptic
by The Readers Muse
Summary: Dinosaurs didn't go extinct. They evolved. Some of them more than others.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I don't own "Jurassic Park" or any of its characters, wishful thinking aside.

 **Authors Note #1:** This is essentially my attempt to explain that ridiculous scene in the plane in Jurassic Part III, where Alan dreams that Billy waking him up is really a raptor.

 **Warnings:** Billy is like a raptor!shifter thing and I swear that makes sense somehow, au on plot, violence, blood/gore, drama, angst, romance, how a thing-thing becomes a 'thang.'

 **Anticryptic**

 _ **Chapter One**_

Dinosaurs didn't go extinct.

They evolved.

Some of them more than others.

He spent the entirety of his undergrad willing to give his _eye teeth_ just to be able to tell _the_ great Doctor Alan Grant exactly that.

He grew out of it around the same time he woke up in the middle of the night during his first dig in Montana to the sound of nightmares. Air saturated with an acrid fear-scent so strong it set him on edge. Restless. Looking up at the stained canvas of his second-hand tent as the sounds carried from Doctor Grant's trailer like he had his ear pressed against the metal. Enhanced hearing more of a curse than a blessing as he listened to the breathless, broken up words and baser whimpers. Tension and fear only occasionally softened by the slur of sleep as the man fought his way through them the same way he did everything.

"Tim! No! Breathe, Tim!"

"Ellie- run!"

"The door locks- it's coming- don't-"

It made him realize, with the worst sort of clarity as the sounds eventually spaced out into nothing, that if he ever told Alan the truth he'd probably just be another monster.

Jurassic Park hadn't just killed people, it'd killed Doctor Grant's sense of wonder.

The deep, abiding love he'd had for the animals he'd dedicated his life to.

At the end of the day, despite how it sounded, he didn't know what was worse.

* * *

He didn't know the exact science behind it. Trying to get anywhere close to a solid answer was too dangerous. That had been hammered into him by his parents. Don't talk about it. Don't shift. Don't draw too much attention to yourself. Don't fall in with the wrong people. Keep your head down. Don't stand out. Don't trust anyone who wasn't like them. Never. Ever. Reveal. What. You. Are.

All he did know, was that somewhere along the line their genetic codes had melded. Diluted into something almost humanoid. Enough that eventually humans and the descendants of the dinosaurs intermixed. Evolving together and separately until they were almost indistinguishable from the rest of humanity.

And for the most part they were.

With a few distinct advantages.

Telling Alan and the others to go and leave him on Isla Sorna had been two-fold. It got them out of danger and allowed him to start thinking about saving his life. Freeing him to use his claws and the razor-sharp teeth that shivered painfully out of his gums more or less on command. It hurt. _Christ_ , did it hurt. But the truth was that part of him had always been quick to rise to the surface. Whenever he was angry or scared, whenever his adrenaline spiked too high. But he'd always clamped it down at the last second. Keeping it controlled.

Until that moment.

For the first time in his adult life, he shifted. Almost feral-high at how embarrassingly freeing it was as he snarled a warning. Gagging river water as he slammed against a rock, heart thudding painfully against bruised ribs. Sharp teeth and hooked claws giving him a fighting chance against the circling Pteranodon.

He slashed wildly whenever they swooped down. Trying to slice through the thin membrane of their wings as sharp beaks gouged down his shoulders and chest. Pebbling the water with snaking red ribbons he caught out of the corner of his eye as the river morphed into vicious downhill rapids.

It was only by chance that he was able to sink his teeth into one of the larger bird's powerful thighs. Pulled half out of the water as tried to rip itself way, screeching in pain. Flooding his mouth with the tart of alien blood - dark and ancient-thick that he swallowed without even thinking. The monster under his skin suddenly ravenous as he sank his claws into the soft of the creature's under belly and slashed down with the last of his strength.

The Pteranodon dropped him. Leaking it's insides in a steaming plume as his claws suddenly met empty air. Almost crushed by the thing's weight as it collapsed into the river behind him with a dying screech.

The others hesitated, leaving him alone as they wheeled indecisively overhead. Clearly thinking twice about coming near this new, unexpected threat as he bobbed with the current - bleeding and exhausted. Slamming into rocks and fallen trees. Trying to hook his claws into something- _anything-_ as the river took him further and further away from Alan and the others.

He bared his teeth.

No, Alan needed him.

He couldn't-

He needed to-

One of the younger ones - too hungry to let such a meal go so easily - swooped low. Forcing him to gargle river water as he snarled and hissed. Bleeding thick and fast in the rushing water as the current shifted. Sloping in front of him before-

The waterfall had been well timed, if not painful. Giving him a chance to hide in a rocky alcove just behind the water. There was just enough space between the cliff face and the waterfall for him to cling to. Fisting the rocks for dear life as the Pteranodon circled high, trying to find him. Able to hold on long enough for it to move on before he let the river take him back. Too tired to put up a fight this time as the current sucked him down to the bottom. Dotting black-out stars across his vision as he filled his lungs with-

He didn't remember hitting the water.

Or the trip down stream.

But he did remember catching Alan's scent in the faded brown smudge of his hat caught in a tangle of branches. Claws sinking into the soggy brim just in time as he whirled past. Feeling something in him break, along with the dull grate of broken ribs, as the water muted the scent even more.

He'd been half conscious when the current took him to the coast and even less so when the military showed up. Bundling him into a helicopter as he clutched Alan's hat. Hoping to hell he'd get a chance to make it up to him

Even then he knew he had a lot to atone for.

If Alan gave him the chance.

Which he did.

He spent a long time thinking he didn't deserve it and longer hating himself. But somehow, in that quiet understated way he had, Alan showed him how. Because even when he was certain the man had to secretly hate him, Alan was there through the hospital stay and the physio. He was even there during those long hours in his office pouring over his thesis. And eventually the longer ones spent together, huddled in the back both of a shitty bar. Nursing beading beers, mutual PTSD and generally something way too high in cholesterol.

And just like the man's lectures, the point sank in slowly, but no less as powerful. At the end of the day Alan knew why he'd taken the eggs. Or at least part of the reason. He understood. _It'd been for him._ To give the dig a few more seasons. To give him more time to find a way for paleontology to exist in a world where the gap between eons seemed to be rapidly closing in.

Apparently, the difference between greed and stupidity meant something in the long run.

Because it wasn't long before Alan started smiling at him again.

Not that he deserved it.

Not with the secrets he was keeping.

Because the other reason - the one he kept on the inside of his teeth - was seeped in guilt. Guilt for not being honest. Guilt for hiding what he was from the most important person in his life. Guilt for keeping a lid on the biggest discovery of the man's career. Something that could probably save the entire profession if they played their cards right.

 _Him._

So, like he said, he didn't deserve the smiles, the forgiveness or the attention.

But at the end of the day, the truth was that he was too weak not to take it anyway.

Too selfish and hungry not to cling to every word, every moment- all of it.

* * *

He figured that if anything, at least Alan wasn't alone in his nightmares anymore.

* * *

It took a long time to get things back to normal. And honestly, it wasn't the same. Not quite. He didn't know of they ever could be. And that was good and bad respectively. Because if life was a road, Isla Sorna had been a crossroads. They might have ended up in the same place, but they'd branched off and taken different routes to get there.

The island had changed them, for better _and_ for worse.

Because along with the tension and the night terrors, there was an electricity to the moments they shared now. Free of the social constraints that had tempered their behavior when he'd been Alan's student, then employee. Now there was an anticipatory sort of maturity that made him wonder what might have happened if they'd been lost on the island alone. The kind of 'almost' he figured had the ability to turn into a screaming fist fight or one of them finally snapping and punching the other in the lips with a brutal kiss.

It was just a matter of what came first.

The problem was, he was pretty sure Alan was as oblivious as ever. It wasn't that he doubted the feeling in his gut or anything. No. More that he doubted Alan's ability to give out the right signals. Even if he wanted too. Which complicated things. Obviously. Because hell if Alan seemed to realize that they sat just a bit too close these days. That it was _him_ Alan sought out whenever the man blinked himself out of a grant proposal or a paper and realized he'd wandered off. Or that they argued just a bit too passionately – flirtatious, testing and pleased - for those old, tired labels to really apply anymore.

Sometimes, when he was especially frustrated, he wondered if Alan was doing it on purpose. If he just couldn't help himself when he leaned in close or started seeking him out more and more. But kept the rest tucked away like an escape route. Like stepping over that last line wasn't something he was willing to risk.

Some day he'd have to meet Dr. Sattler and ask.

* * *

In the end, how it happened, how it all came spilling out, was stupid.

It was ridiculous, avoidable and so far into the realm of shitty luck and timing that he didn't know if there was a word in the English language to describe how much the universe apparently had it in for him.

They were celebrating the successful defense of his thesis when some mugger high on something – along with a couple of his equally strung-out friends - ambushed them outside the bar.

"Don't even think about it, pretty boy."

They had a knife to Alan's throat faster than he could process. Sending the man's hat tumbling into an oily puddle as Alan said something- hands raised as much as the asshole's grip would allow. Murmuring out something soothing, disarming. Something that might have even worked if the rank stink of brain-fever and chemicals weren't burning the inside of his nostrils every time one of them so much as twitched.

"Just hand over the goods, wallets, watches, rings, all of it and we ain't got a problem. Yell and I slit the old guy's throat before you can finish. Got it?"

An angry hiss rattled from somewhere low in his throat. Barely masked by the snarl of steam leaving the vents from the bar kitchen. Shimmering the night in golden aerosol showers as half-burned grease seeped into the dark.

But Alan heard it.

Startling enough that the knife cut a couple millimeters into the pale of his throat. Knowing that sound even better than he did as the raptor that shared the space under his skin all but _writhed_. Rising fast to the surface as the wounded line of red tarted the air. Making Alan flinch the same moment he passed the point of no return.

He exhaled in a rush and let his darker bones loose.

* * *

 **A/N:** There will be one more chapter. Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think.

 **Reference:**

* Anticryptic: of or pertaining to camouflage used by a predator to provide stealth, as opposed to camouflage used by prey to hide.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I don't own "Jurassic Park" or any of its characters, wishful thinking aside.

 **Authors Note #1:** This is essentially my attempt to explain that ridiculous scene in the plane in Jurassic Part III, where Alan dreams that Billy waking him up is a raptor.

 **Warnings:** au on plot, violence, blood/gore, drama, angst, romance, how a thing-thing becomes a 'thang.'

 **Anticryptic**

 _ **Chapter Two**_

He bared his teeth, catching the reflection in the ringleader's eyes as they widened. Red veined whites that got too big too fast as sharp teeth dropped down from his gums. Tasting the unsteady taint of his own red as the man stumbled backwards, almost taking out his cronies. Dropping the bat he'd been fisting with a damning sound as the asshole's mouth open and closed.

Because instead of ducking back and giving way, he straightened. Letting his claws slip free from where he'd dug them into the inside of his palms. Ignoring the blood seeping between his fingers as it pebbled across his hikers and the filthy blacktop at his feet.

"Billy, don't-"

He could tell the moment Alan saw him. _Really saw him_. It was all there in the hiccupping inhale, the pounding heart, the mangled syllables that stopped before they could become a word. All a thousand and one ways someone could start screaming without making a sound.

He turned away. Hating it. Knowing he wouldn't be able to handle what made it to the man's face. The fear. The disgust. All of it. Not from Alan. _He just couldn't._

The second one rabbited along with the first, stumbling over themselves and scrambling away when he took a step forward. His shadow like a nightmare as it spread wide behind him. Backlit in the flickering orange lights at the mouth of the alley. Leaving their friend, the one holding the knife to Alan's throat, suddenly alone in the dark.

"Billy-"

Alan's fear scent was strong, acrid and almost overwhelming when he slowly turned back to face them. But it was the focus of the scent that confused him when Alan rasped his name. Expression so startlingly free of the horror and disgust he'd been sure he'd find there that he didn't believe it. Instead, he forced himself to raise his head and look directly at the thug behind him. Knife wavering dangerously against Alan's throat before-

"Dude, what's wrong with your eyes? That's sick. Like-"

He leaned down, crouching with muscles that still expected a tail to balance them. Hooking his claws around the handle of the bat before he straightened. Not once looking away from the knife and the blood and-

The bat splintered in his hands. Showering wood shards across the gutter as the asshole behind the knife jumped. Eyes darting from him, to the bat, to the mouth of the alley in quick succession.

Doing nothing to hold back the snarl this time as he advanced a step, then another. Forcing the man to retreat, upper lip trembling. Wrestling with Alan as the man started resisting. Holding his ground in a way that was so distinctly animal it made him want to-

"Drop the knife," he hissed, more raptor than human. Ignoring the sickening sting when the remaining splinters found the holes his claws had made on his palms and tried to bury deep.

The knife clattered to the ground with a cheap sound. A hallmark to the way the setting changed as the asshole backed away blubbering, hands up. Marking them moment Alan started breathing again. Throat working through a tentative swallow as his hand flew up to press against the shallow line of blood that ringed his neck like a ghoulish necklace.

"Leave," he spat, sharp teeth garbling the words. "Or I'll-"

But whatever threat he was going for ended up being pointless, because by then the asshole was already running. Falling as he scrambled down the alley, over a fence and into the weed choked gully that lined the roadway. Leaving them with nothing but the debris of their lives and a sudden silence.

He breathed, shuddery and queasy-sick as he turned away. Pivoting on his heel as the tacking slick of his blood added an unwelcome realism to what he could only assume was the end of everything. As far as he was concerned anyway.

 _Alan saw._

Alan knew.

Oh god, Alan.

"Billy?"

It was cautious. Careful in a gentle, patronizing sort of way. Caught somewhere between one tone people used to calm a frightened animal or to talk someone down from something worse. Either way he hated it.

Hell, he couldn't stand it.

Not from Alan.

 _He couldn't._

He kept his back to him, breathing hard. Trying to force his claws to recede as his chest ached with the hammering of his own heart. Blood pressure probably through the roof as Alan took a step forward. Looming behind him as he hunched his shoulders. Able to taste the cusping adrenaline as the man reached out and-

He ran.

* * *

He was still running. Even when he wrenched open his door and tossed himself – wheezing - into his apartment. Still running when he tripped over the rug and got the wind knocked out of him by the fall. Clutching at his ribs with too sharp nails as angry tears blurred his vision.

Because it was over.

 _All of it.  
_  
Whatever he and Alan had been working up too.

Whatever they could have been.

 _Gone._

He tucked an elbow under his chest and rested his forehead in the crux where his elbow dipped. Clammy with sweat and still breathing hard as frustration started to get the better of him. His free hand curled into a bloody fist against the floor. Resisting the urge to punch the shitty linoleum.

The truth was, he hadn't thought about the risk, he'd just reacted. Alan had been in danger and just like on the island, he'd known in that moment, whatever happened, saving Eric was the only call.

He didn't regret it.

He regretted himself.

Everything he was.

Everything he wasn't.

Most of all he regretted the fact that he couldn't hide forever and that sooner or later even the best-case scenario would probably involve Alan and him with a table between them. The older man shaking his head as his body said what his mouth was stalling on.

All those clever ways saying no without actually saying the words.

* * *

"Can I come in?"

He wasn't sure what he was expecting when he woke up from the deep, yawning abyss of his couch cushions a couple days later. Staring wide-eyed as whoever knocked did it again. Louder this time. Like they'd gotten up the nerve to commit to it. But either way, despite somehow bypassing the locked door and security buzzer in the lobby, he wasn't exactly surprised when he opened the door and found Alan standing awkward and rangy in the sallow lights of the hall.

He pushed off the door jam slowly with the point of his fist. Testing the firm of the bones before he finally nodded and let him inside.

"You've been drinking," Alan observed. Only slightly disapproving as his eyes flicked to the kitchen table and empty bottle of Jack he'd left from the night before. Still feeling queasy and unsteady as he crossed his arms in front of his chest. Ignoring it when the soft of his t-shirt threatened to ride up.

"So have you," he pointed out blandly. Knowing he'd probably be sick if he put any real feeling into it. Able to smell the whiskey and insomnia that was coming off the man in waves now that he was inside the apartment. It wasn't a good combination. Alan never drank the hard stuff. "And I don't blame you."

Alan sighed and set his hat down on the table. Expression cautious as much as earnest.

"I don't blame you either. How I reacted? You saved my life. Billy, I am sor-"

He jerked his head in a hard negative.

"Don't. Don't say it," he gritted, wheeling away. Putting distance between them again.

"I'm trying to thank you," Alan pointed out, frustrated.

"You don't need to thank me for that," he returned softly. "You weren't the one with the secret to hide either."

"You could have told me," Alan chided gently, cocking his head in that way he had.

He made a rude sound before he could stop himself. Laughing without humor has he dragged his hands over his stubble.

"How?" he asked flatly, tensing when Alan made to step forward. "When I first met you- out on the dig- you were still having nightmares. Even screaming yourself awake sometimes. Tell me how that conversation was supposed to go?"

Alan didn't say anything for a while after that. And neither did he. Each of them stuck with their own suffocating brand of quiet. Slowly processing everything as Alan's eyes darted from his hands, to his face, then back again.

The moment broke the same time Alan took a small step forward.

Something that sang like an overture and threatened to give him false hope.

"What are-"

"What am I?" he finished for him. Interrupting him when it seemed like he was about to trail off. Inhaling deeply enough that he could still smell the acrid scent of the mugger on the Alan's jacket. "Jurys still out on that. It's never exactly been safe enough to study seriously. That kind of stuff was basically drilled into me from a young age."

"There are more of you?" Allan breathed. "More people like you?"

He nodded.

The next breath he took was shuddery. Over-extending the capacity of his lungs as he closed his eyes and let the shift happen. Shoulders hunching as the agonizing tear of his claws pierced pain through raw nerve beds. Feeling his incisors drop like an after-thought, parting his lips as the jagged points flirting with the outside of his lips.

"This is what I am," he said simply, unable to hold back the full body tremor. _Needing Allan to see it._ To have a chance to see _him_ behind the sharp black talons and vicious teeth. To see all of it. _Everything.  
_  
He thought about opening his eyes on the helicopter and seeing Alan's face for the first time since the bird cage.

He thought about second chances and the expression on the man's face when he'd smiled up at him.

High on morphine but soaring higher still as the air above his head thickened with Alan's scent.

When he opened his eyes, Alan expression was a gamut.

Frightening him enough that his mouth started moving again.

"I didn't tell you because-"

"I don't care," Alan broke in bluntly.

He blinked.

"You don't-"

"No, Billy. I don't. Not about any of it," Alan murmured. Clear and strong as the space between them narrowed until there was nothing left. Until it was only Alan and him and- "I just care about you."

Something in him sagged. The part that'd been waiting for the dismissal. The careful half-mile of distance. The moment Alan told him they were done. Whatever they had - whatever they'd been working towards - was over.

Because it didn't come.

And part of him just couldn't comprehend that.

He flinched when calloused knuckles brushed across his cheek. Following the curve down to the point of his chin before tipping it up. Looking at him for a long stretch - awkward and tense - where all he could hear was the hammering of heartbeats before-

The kiss was soft and careful-sweet. Somehow managing to be nothing and _exactly_ what he'd expected when he'd thought about how this moment would go. And he appreciated it more than words could express.

When so many things in his life were violent and sharp, to have this start with something gentle was everything.

Still, he wasn't quite expecting it when Alan broke away to laugh. Leaving him shy and greedy as he followed the man's lips for more. Shivering at the sensation when Alan chuckled into them.

"What?" he breathed. Unable to help from grinning as the smile on Alan's face transformed into something he remembered from the back the man's first book. One of those dog-earred copies he'd re-read over and over long before he finally met him. Before the park. Before the money problems. Before a lot of things.

Alan just shook his head, smile wide.

"I just remembered something- about the plane before we crashed. I was dreaming and- _oh hell_ , remind me to tell you later."

Alan was kissing him again, crushing him up against the sofa before he could even so much as open his mouth. Sending electric thrill from nerves he'd figured had gone dark a long time ago. Lighting him up in a distinctly human way as the animal under his skin let go of an approving rattle.

Later was fine with him.

* * *

 **A/N:** This story is now complete. Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think.


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